


Spring Floods

by thimbleful



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Post Season 7, Romance, Unresolved Romantic Tension, canon-verse, the romantic tension gets resolved though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 02:58:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14946327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleful/pseuds/thimbleful
Summary: Spring has arrived, and with it, a lot of work. "Don’t you wish we could leave sometimes? Just for the day," an overwhelmed Sansa asks her cousin. The next day, when she thinks she has a whole day of petitions waiting for her, Jon surprises her with a picnic for just the two of them--and by being very attentive and chivalrous and utterlyconfusing.





	Spring Floods

**Author's Note:**

> prompt by elew223: "what about Jon and Sansa have been working hard and then one of them suggests playing hooky for an afternoon?"
> 
> Thank you for the prompt!

When Mother and Father spoke of spring floods and exchanged tired glances, Sansa always assumed they spoke of rivers and brooks. But now, when she’s the Lady of Winterfell and Jon’s King in the North, and the last slush of winter is drying under the spring sun, she understands what they really meant. She knows why they sometimes disappeared for an hour or two to catch their breaths.

Work piles up during the winter, and despite their best efforts to control the workflow, since spring arrived they’ve started each new day drowning in things to do. It’s exhausting and never ending and, quite frankly, overwhelming.

She drops the quill and leans back in her chair, rubbing the tension from between her eyebrows.

“Don’t you wish we could leave sometimes? Just for the day. We could…” She searches her dreams for something attainable but finds nothing. “I don’t know.”

Jon looks up from his ledger with a sympathetic smile. “I do.” 

Their desks stand side by side. In the chaotic days before the Great War, when room was scarce and she had to share chambers with Arya, and Jon with Bran, to house all the people seeking shelter or helping in fighting the wights, they also moved her desk into his study. Months have passed since then. The war was won, people left, and Winterfell became spacious once more--and yet her desk remains in his study. Neither of them has ever mentioned it.

Sansa runs her finger over the smooth wood, rubs at the one dent where Jon once dropped a paper weight when he stumbled over her mending basket.

“Should I move back to my solar?”

Jon draws a breath. “If that’s what you want.”

“I like it here. I like…” _The silence we share, the way you sigh when you read your letters, the softness in your voice when you pull me back from daydreams, and how it smells in here, smells of you._ “...the company. Makes the days seem shorter.”

“Then stay.”

Jon blinks softly at her and returns his attention to the ledger. She sighs, picks up the quill, and gets back to work. Tomorrow they have petitions, and whenever they open up the Great Hall to their people, it means at least one lord shows up to ask for her hand for either himself or a relative. She knows Jon gets letters every so often too, from southern Houses. So far he’s turned them all down, but they both know a day will come when he’ll need to use her hand in marriage to sweeten a deal.

She knows he receives letters about himself too.

She tries to imagine a strange man or woman wandering the halls of Winterfell, sharing their space, and finds it utterly impossible.

Would Jon have to move? Would she?

People talk about that sometimes, she knows, that the King in the North should make another castle his seat, or that she should move to the Dreadfort. Even briefly entertaining the idea constricts her chest. Properly pondering it is utterly impossible too.

 

A goblet is placed in front of her. She looks up and finds Jon holding a supper tray: two bowls of steaming soup, a plate of bread and thick slices of cheese, two honey cakes, and a decanter of wine. A glance out the window tells her evening’s crept up on them. She never even felt hunger, but now that the rich smell of cream and mushroom fills her nose, her stomach does rumble.

“Seemed like one of those days you’d rather sup in here,” he says.

Then he drags his chair over to her desk. Many evenings they’ve spent like this, supping alone together in the quiet of his study. Sometimes he’s the one too focused on his work to remember supper, sometimes she is, but together they always manage to get food in their bellies before bed. They usually chat too, but tonight Jon’s moving his spoon between bowl and mouth without a pause, eyes distant.

With his desk, the map table, the units in front of the fireplace where they sometimes entertain a guest or two, the side table carrying a pitcher of water, cups, and an assortment of liquor, the braziers, her desk and the knick-knacks she’s brought, the room’s more than crowded.

He never said he _wanted_ her here. He’s only being polite, self-sacrificing--Winterfell belongs to his cousin Sansa, he always says, as though the King in the North is a guest in his own home--and she’s the one intruding.

She’ll have the desk moved back to her solar tomorrow.

 

The next day, however, as Sansa leaves the Great Keep to find the steward, Jon’s waiting for her in the courtyard. A glint brightens his eyes when he sees her, a glint that reminds her of his barely contained excitement when he gives her, Arya, or Bran their nameday gifts, and her heart picks up its pace. Has he prepared a surprise for her? No, she’s being silly. Jon wouldn’t. They have too much work to do and Jon never spoils her.

But as she reaches his side, an open carriage rolls toward them, decorated with the tender first flowers of spring and drawn by an elegant, white horse. The driver, Becken, tips his hat at her and bids her good morrow, jumps down on the ground and holds the door open for her.

“What’s this?” she asks Jon, but he only gestures at her to climb inside. “Jon, we have work!" 

“Arya and Bran will listen to the petitions today. You and I have the day off.” 

“To do what?”

Once more, Jon gestures at her to climb aboard. She glances down at her attire--a simple gray wool dress, black leather boots, and the thin gray cloak she wore when they reunited--and finds it far too informal for any sort of activity outside of Winterfell’s walls. She’s not even wearing the Stark sigil!

“Am I dressed appropriately?”

“You look fine.”

“I could change if--”

“Seven hells, Sansa. Would you like to come or not?”

She presses her lips together to hide a smile, gathers her skirts, and climbs aboard. Jon settles down next to her with a huff and off they go.

During the ride he stays silent, keeps his eyes on the landscape, so she follows his lead and admires their North. Fields of muted brown and tan swish by, speckled with the green of new grass, the white of snowdrops, and the yellow of coltsfoot, and she closes her eyes and breathes in the fresh scents of spring. Though the winds sweeping down from the true North still carry a crispness and chill that nip at her ears and nose, the sun’s strong enough to leave her warm and sleepy. An impulse to rest her head on Jon’s shoulder strikes her, but she ignores it. There was a time when he was the only man she felt comfortable touching, when her head on his shoulder a late winter evening in front of the hearth wasn’t a rare thing. Lately, though, he’s the only one whose touch she avoids--and yet he’s the one whose company she always seeks, the one to whom her eyes are always drawn.

She rarely finds him looking at her, though.

Sansa thinks of their desks, side by side, and how she never let the servants know to move it. When they return, she decides. She’ll move it then.

 

The carriage stops by a path leading into a wood of birches, their willowy branches full of bright green buds. Gracefully, Jon jumps to the ground and offers his hand. Her eyes flicker down to it.

She can’t pinpoint when it happened, her aversion to his touch, but she knows he’s noticed for he respects it. When she’s lost in thought, he brings her back by calling her name instead of touching her shoulder. When he hands her a quill or a fork or a book, he lays it on the table instead of in her hand. When they bid each other good night, he smiles tenderly at her and bows his head instead of stroking her arm or kissing her forehead.

He’s never asked her about this change, and she’s grateful for it for she doesn’t know whether she could explain it. She only knows it’s always too warm, his touch, that it stirs something within her that’s better off dormant. A maelstrom that threatens to pull her under.

Her hesitation affects him: his eyebrows tug together and his fingers curl against his palm. Soon his arm will drop and she can climb down from the carriage on her own. That’s better, isn’t it? But then Sansa sees her hand move without her permission. A jolt shoots through her when his fingers close around hers. Their eyes meet and a smile lights up his face and she forgets how to breathe. 

Becken clears his throat, shattering whatever spell she was under, and she inhales sharply. He hands Jon a large wicker basket with a silk ribbon tied around the handle. The lid does little to stop the scents of grilled food and fine cheese from seeping through and why does this day feel so much like courting?

Sansa shakes her head to clear it and follows as Jon leads her into the woods.

As they move over rocks and roots, he keeps her hand in his, supporting her. Behind them, she hears wheels and hooves against gravel and dirt, and soon they’re all alone.

“He’ll be back a couple of hours past midday,” Jon says as though he can read her thoughts.

They reach a brook rushing over mossy stones and fallen branches. There’s no bridge, but Jon leaps across easily. Biting her lip, Sansa eyes the water. The brook’s not wide by any means, but it’s surrounded by uneven slippery ground and she’s not used to leaping around like a frog. She sits and walks and sits and walks and, sometimes, when she must, rides a horse or a carriage. Her body doesn’t know how to leap.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“We’re almost there. You’ll like it.” He flashes a smile. “I hope.”

Despite the warmer weather, he’s still in the winter cloak she sewed him after their bannermen named him king and, beneath it, he wears his leather jerkin and regular trousers. His hair--which she knows is long enough to brush his shoulders now, because he sometimes lets it out, carding a hand through it, when he works on something challenging--is bound in a bun. Longclaw hangs from his hip. He looks like he always does, but the sun’s bathing him in golden light and nature’s framing him in tender greens, and he’s dropped the basket to hold his arms out, ready to catch her, and the sight makes her heart beat out a strange rhythm.

 “Jump, Sansa.”

She stares down at the flowing water. Even if she fell, it would reach her knees at the most. She wouldn’t be swept away or pulled under and yet she feels as though she’s about to drown.

Sansa takes a deep breath. The fear is useless, unfounded. She leaps. Her feet hit the muddy ground with a _glop_ ; her hands fall to his shoulders as his close around her waist. The breath she held rushes out of her. Her foot slides in the mud, twisting her ankle, and she knows with a swoop in her stomach that she’ll fall. But Jon’s arm slides around her back, anchoring her to him, keeping her upright.

The feel of him burns through all the layers of wool and leather and linen.

She slips out of his hold and tests her ankle. It’s fine. Strong. It only faltered for a moment.

“Do you want to go back?” he murmurs.

“I thought you said Becken wouldn’t be back until this afternoon.”

Jon’s mouth opens, closes, tightens. He scoops up the basket and leads on. There’s something tense about the way he holds his shoulders now, or perhaps the slope of his fur plays tricks on her.

They reach a cave, the rough stone dappled by lichen, and she hesitates at its dark maw. Jon gives her a look that’s either fond or condescending (possibly both), and offers his hand again. There’s a jolt this time too, when their fingers connect; a jolt she feels all the way down to her toes. He’s always kind to her, but this chivalry is new and unexpected. Unlike him. Pleasant and unsettling all at once. He leads her into darkness and confusion and raw, damp air. But it lasts only six steps and then the stone beneath their feet bathes in sunlight. Four more steps and they’re outside.

“Oh.” She tightens her hold on his hand. “Oh, Jon.”

A secret glade, hidden from the world by a ring of trees: thick oaks, proud chestnuts, tall pines, and ancient beeches, their roots curling over the ground like fat snakes and diving into a white sea of wood anemones dotted with clusters of liverleaves and violets and cowslips. Above them sprawling branches form a dome sparse enough to let in plenty of sunlight and show off patches of clear blue sky. The gentle wind rustles twigs and newborn leaves, carries the scent of wet soil and delicate flowers, and the sound of trilling birds. She closes her eyes to better pick out the different songs. Lapwings and willow warblers, rosefinches and starlings. A thousand other species she doesn’t know by name, all coming together in the most beautiful melody. 

A smile blooms on her face. The sun kisses her cheeks. The wind too, the softest brush over her left cheekbone.

“Robb showed me this place, once,” Jon says and she turns to look at him. Their hands are still clasped. The basket lies by his feet. He’s standing so close she could count his eyelashes. “He told me…” Jon ducks his head and breathes out a smile. “I thought you’d like it.”

“I do. It’s beautiful.”

“Are you hungry? We’ve yet to break our fast.”

“I’m starving.”

Jon’s smile grows and he lets go of her hand. She flexes it and curls her fingers around her thumb, watching him unhook Longclaw and lay it on the ground.

From the basket, Jon pulls out a blanket and spreads it on a patch of mossy ground. He sets out plates, cups on a silver tray, a bottle of Dornish red, grilled chicken, rosemary bread, kidney pie, a salad of spring vegetables and greens, pears baked with cinnamon and vanilla, and soft rich cheeses.

“All this for _breakfast_?” she asks.

“We usually eat much earlier than this. You must be ravenous. I know I am.” Jon takes out the last dish--a plate of lemon cakes frosted with sugar--and places it on the blanket. “And today… Today is for you, Sansa. To unwind and indulge, to do as you please.”

“Does that mean I can eat nothing but lemon cakes?”

He grins at her. “Well, I did pack ten of them for a reason.”

When she moves to sit, he’s there again, offering his hand, guiding her to the ground. He pours her a glass of wine, cuts meat and pie for her, hands her a fork and a napkin. He makes sure she’s comfortable, apologizes for not bringing cushions, and asks whether she’s cold. Although she assures him she’s fine, he must see that the brisk air does bother her a smidge, for he unhooks his cloak and wraps it around her shoulders, even pulls out her braid that got tucked under the furs.

Sansa hides a smile behind her cup. “You’re being very attentive today.”

“Yeah, it’s… Should I not be?”

She takes a sip and puts the cup back on the tray. “Your cloak will smell like me.”

“And why would that bother me?”

Sunlight bounces off the tray, off the cup, blinding her. She shifts the basket so that it shadows the tray. It’s engraved with the Stark direwolf surrounded by laurel leaves. The two cups as well. A wedding gift to her parents, she recalls, but she doesn’t remember from whom. Not that it’s important. She tears off a piece of bread. It’s still warm from the oven. The grilled chicken is not. Jon breaks off a wing for her, and knows her well enough to peel off the skin before handing it over. She thanks him and takes delicate little bites of the meat, ever the lady. Lips quirked in an amused smile, he watches her for a moment before grabbing a thigh for himself and eating it as if it’s a chore to get done in a quick, efficient manner.

Like yesterday, he drifts off in thoughts and leaves her to her own useless ponderings. Winterfell is busy and silence is generally a boon, but today her thoughts are her enemy, especially in his company. But then her mouth does her no favors either. Perhaps it should remain shut.

 _Your cloak will smell like me._ Why did those words tumble from her lips? And why wouldn’t it bother him? Because he doesn’t mind--or because he doesn’t care?

“Tell me about the Wall,” she says to drown out her mind. 

Jon scrunches up his face. “The Wall?”

“I like…” _The burr of your voice reverberating in my chest when you talk, the crinkles around your eyes when you smile at old memories, the way you lose yourself in your storytelling and let me look at you unnoticed._ “...hearing about it.”

“You do?” He finishes his serving and lies down on the blanket, arms folded under his head. “Did I ever tell you about the time Sam forgot to close the coop and all the chickens got out?”

She shakes her head and pops a bit of lemon cake into her mouth, sucks off the frosted sugar sticking to her thumb. Jon’s eyes linger at her lips for a touch too long. Her stomach fills with the anticipation of things she’s never dared to dream, but then he turns his attention to the sky and begins to tell a funny story about several grown men chasing chickens. He looks so comfortable lying there, so at ease, like a young man whose shoulders never bore the weight of a kingdom.

For a moment, she forgets herself. For a moment, she wonders what it would be like to lie down next to him, to pillow her head on his arm, rest her hand on his chest. Breathe him in.

People talk about them sometimes, she knows, that the King in the North should marry his cousin. A practical union that would solve several of their problems. That would give the North an heir. He must know that as well.

He’s never said a word about it, even though it's his duty not hers.

Once the chickens in his story are safely back in their coop, she shares a story of her own, one of the few happy memories from King’s Landing. Then he tells her of the wildlings, and she tells him of the Vale. He fills her cup with more wine. He cuts her another slice of pie. Their fingers brush; their eyes never meet. They speak of their childhood--not shared memories but new anecdotes about her and Arya, or him and Robb, that leave them both in stitches. She can’t remember the last time she laughed so hard she cried, but now she dabs the corners of hers with a napkin while Jon wipes his with the back of his hand. She even has to make water.

When she attempts to rise, Jon shoots up and pulls her to her feet. His skin is soft but calloused, his grip gentle but firm. She stares at the space between them and wills her stupid cheeks to cool.

A magpie swoops through the glade and lands on a nearby branch where it rattles out its squawks, mocking her for allowing her silly romantic nature to get the better of her for a moment. Sansa slips out of Jon’s cloak and hands it to him with a polite smile, heads out of the glade for privacy.

When she returns, he’s still standing there, in the middle of the glade, the cloak a bundle in his arms. He helps her sit this time too, wraps the cloak around her shoulders again, and her mouth opens to ask him why he’s so attentive, but she closes it again because why would a second attempt earn her a better answer?

Instead she offers him a lemon cake and tells him how she once tried teaching Rickon how to sew, only for him to stitch all of Mother’s gowns together so she’d never have trouble choosing what to wear. Sprawled out on the blanket like a lazy cat, Jon’s listening intently, mouth grinning, eyes shining, and it tugs at something deep within.

Sansa pops another lemon cake into her mouth and focuses on the tart flavor hidden beneath the sugary sweetness.

By the time only crumbs remain on the plate, the sun has left its highest point to make its slow descent into evening.

“It’s time,” Jon says. “Becken should be back.”

“Already?” She sounds like a sullen little girl.

He wipes his hands on a napkin. “You don’t want to go?”

“Can we stay?” She glances at their beautiful ceiling of fluffy clouds drifting over a canvas of deepest blue. “Can we stay until the stars come out?”

“Aye, if that’s what you want.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Why would I mind, Sansa?”

 He shakes his head at her and leaves to tell Becken to come back in the evening. Now that the blanket is free, she lies down in Jon’s spot, his cloak tucked around her like a coverlet, and surrounds herself with his scent. The sun’s warm on her face and she closes her eyes to enjoy it all, but every time a twig snaps or leaves rustle, her stomach surges with fear.

In the days before the war, Arya taught her how to use a dagger. Longclaw’s no help, but a carving knife lies by the basket and she curls a hand around the grip to feel its weight. She’s safe here, though. Jon wouldn’t leave her if she weren’t safe--and yet that knowledge does little to ease her worry. To pass the time and calm herself, Sansa picks flowers and breaks off slender twigs of birch and sallow. Then she settles down on the blanket and starts binding a wreath. She’s almost done when Jon returns.

“Was Becken upset?” she asks.

“Not at all.” Jon plonks down next to her. “He said he quite enjoyed riding back and forth instead of doing his usual chores.” He nods at the wreath. “You’re good at that. It’s very pretty.” 

“Good, because I made it for you.” She tucks the last wood anemone into the wreath. “I’ve made you a crown. Thought it was about time you wore one, _My King_.”

Mirth glitters in his eyes as he bows his head and allows her to place the crown atop it. “How do I look, _my lady_?”

“Very handsome.”

She said it offhandedly, but Jon’s regarding her with more sharpness than the situation requires and it makes her want to squirm. 

“Do you think so?”

“Everyone thinks so, Jon. Haven’t you heard the way the scullery maids whisper about you? And the chambermaids. And the serving maids. And my handmaids. Even the steward’s daughter is wildly in love with you. I’m surprised you haven’t walked into your chambers and found her already in your bed, hoping to warm it.”

“Who says I haven’t?”

Her eyes snap to his, something dark and viscous roiling in her stomach. “You have?”

Jon laughs. “Once. I sent her on her way.”

“She’s pretty,” Sansa says, brushing broken flowers off her skirts.

“Aye. She’s pretty.”

“You have no wife. No one would blame you for…” The wind catches a wayward strand of hair, and she tucks it back behind her ear. “Kings often do that sort of thing.”

“I wasn’t tempted, Sansa.”

“It’s none of my concern,” she says to her lap.

“No, suppose not.”

She grabs the half-full wine bottle. “More wine?”

It takes them a moment and quite a few sips of wine to find their way back to friendly banter, but once they do, the conversation flows freely, easily. They finish the last of the chicken and the bread, and speculate about the nature of Arya’s relationship with the two boys who are always chasing after her, Pod and Gendry, and whom she’ll end up choosing. The depth of Jon’s insight, the way he’s read all three of them--especially how Arya’s more comfortable around Pod which tells him she’s more interested in Gendry--leaves Sansa uncomfortable. Just a bit.

What conclusions does he reach when he reads her?

Does he read her?

The wine’s getting to her. She lies down on her back and lets the world spin while Jon prattles on.

 

Something tickles her cheek, her lip, her lashes. She blinks her eyes open and finds Jon smiling down at her, a blade of grass in his fingers which he ghosts over the tip of her nose. He’s still wearing the flower crown and, even though the sun hangs low in the sky by now, its rays still find him, casting him in a hazy glow. He’s beautiful. It hits her with such force she rolls over on her side to catch her breath.

She’s falling for him. 

No.

"Sansa?"

She _loves_ him.

“Are you all right?"

She has for a while now.

It takes her a heartbeat or two to find her voice. “You startled me. Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah, you… For a while. It’s getting late and I… I’m sorry. I remembered you and Jeyne used to tickle one another like that and I thought… I don’t know what I thought. I shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, we…” She closes her eyes and huffs out a laugh. “It was a game. To know which boy was sweet on you.”

“You knew who was sweet on you by tickling each other?”

Sansa worries her lip with her teeth. On the ground, within reach, lies a black feather with flecks of silver and white. She picks it up and blows off dust and crumbled bits of autumn leaves still clinging to it.

“I’ll show you. If you like. Lie down.”

Leather creaks. Fabric rustles. Jon exhales with a satisfied hum. When she turns around, the crown lies on the lid of basket while he lies on his back.

“Close your eyes,” she says and he does. “Every time I tickle you, I’ll think of a name. When I’m done, tell me which stroke tickled the most, and whatever name I was thinking of then, she’s the one who fancies you.”

And so she runs the feather across his forehead, over the delicate skin of his eyelids, over the bridge of his nose, across his lips, which twitch beneath the feather, and over the dip between his chin and bottom lip. She thinks of the steward’s daughter. She thinks of herself.

“Well?”

“I don’t know. They all tickled.”

She sighs exaggeratedly. “All right. I’ll do it again. Pay attention this time.”

“I am,” he says and there’s something in his voice that makes her stomach flutter.

Once she’s done, he furrows his brow, seemingly giving it proper consideration, only to shrug and ask her to tickle him again.

The third time it happens, she realizes he’s teasing her, and she attempts to stick the feather up his nose in retaliation. Jon snorts and sputters, closes his fingers around her wrist, and in a too-swift movement for her brain to comprehend, he has her on her back. Her lips fall open with a gasp and her chest is heaving with breaths and Jon’s smirking down at her as if he knows exactly what effect he has on her. Eyes locked with hers, he plucks the feather from her fingers and tuts at her.

“I am a king, Sansa. Is that how you treat a king?”

“It’s how I treat _this_ king.”

Although he turns away from her, it’s not fast enough to hide the grin spreading from ear to ear. When he turns back, however, he’s schooled his features and squints seriously at the feather, how the waning sunlight shines through the tufts.

“Attempting to suffocate the king with a feather. That has to be treason, right? I think, as the king, I must punish you.”

“No!” she squeals, pulling his cloak up to her face.

“No?” He rolls the quill between his fingers. “You don’t trust me to dole out fair punishment?”

“Not at this particular moment, no.”

He hums and lets the feather rest on his palm, sucks in a deep breath and blows it into the wind. Its dancing holds his attention for a brief moment, but then he lies down next to her, so close she can feel his body heat but not so close she can feel him.

“Do you want to sleep some more, Sansa? I’ll watch over you.”

“I don’t want to sleep.”

“Then what do you want?”

She glances at Jon through the fur; he’s watching the sky. “Tell me more stories?”

He gives a crooked smile. “All right,” he says and tells her about giants and mammoths.

 

People talk about them sometimes, she knows, about the King in the North and the Lady of Winterfell and how they are married in all ways but one. He must know that as well.

And they do spend all their time together, working, eating, talking, laughing, arguing. They move about Winterfell like her mother and father once did. Strangers often take them for husband and wife, and every time Jon politely corrects them, her battered heart hardens more and more. Hopefully, he doesn't know that part.

It's why she started avoiding his touch. She can admit that to herself now. A hand at the small of her back, fingers brushing along her arm, lips pressed to her temple. She’d come to expect it, enjoy it.

She’d come to crave it, crave it in a way he wasn’t giving her, and it scared her senseless.

She tries to imagine them lying like this, side by side, in her bed, as husband and wife, and finds it all too easy.

Above them, the sky is darkening, and without the heat of the sun, the air carries little warmth. He must be cold without his cloak. He’d never complain, though. Not Jon. He’d rather freeze and shatter to bits than let her shiver. She snakes her hand out from under her cozy nest and touches his hand.

Jon turns his head to look at her, eyes unreadable. They so often are. Too often. She hates him a little bit for it.

“Your hands are cold,” she tells him.

“I’m fine.”

“I have my own cloak.”

“It’s too thin, Sansa.”

“We…” Her courage leaves her; her heart beats so hard she feels it deep in her belly.

“We?”

“We could... share.”

“We could,” he says to the skies. “If that’s what you want.”

Lifting up the cloak, she scoots closer to him and wraps it over his body. Both of them lie on their backs, but now she feels his thigh, his hip, his arm, all pressing against her. Jitters run through her body, telling her to run or perhaps pounce or just turn slightly and cuddle into his side. She still doesn’t know what he wants, still doesn’t know whether this is a king spoiling his cousin for the day. Indulging her by treating her like something precious, the way she would’ve wanted as the girl he once knew. Perhaps he never intended on it having this effect on her. Perhaps that’s why he’s so still and quiet.

“I can’t remember the last time I looked at the stars,” she says, just to fill the silence. A few have appeared, twinkling faintly in the expanse of muted blue. “I barely remember all their names anymore.”

“The Free Folk have different names for some of them.”

“Will you teach me?”

Jon hums and points at one of them, but it’s hard to tell which from that angle. When she tells him so, he pauses for a breath--and then he stretches out his arm and pats his shoulder, inviting her to pillow her head there. Just like she imagined earlier. But his eyes hold none of the tender warmth she longs to see, and as she settles in, molds herself around him, her cheeks flush with shame. He can’t see that, though, and she tries not to care and turns her attention to the sky. More stars have appeared now, as though they spring to life before their very eyes.

“That constellation,” he says and now it’s easy to follow his pointing, “is called the Horned Lord.”

“The… Stallion, isn’t it?”

“Aye.”

He teaches her another and another until he doesn’t know anymore names. She could slip out of his embrace now, but like her desk staying in his study, she stays in his arms and neither points out how unnecessary it is. He must like it, then, mustn’t he? The feel of her. But he’s still so passive. His left hand doesn’t caress her hair or her back, his right hand doesn’t curl above her hand, which rests on his chest. He doesn’t breathe her in or kiss the crown of her head.

He’s the bravest man she knows, but perhaps, sometimes, he’s just as craven as she is. Perhaps, sometimes, he’s the one who needs to be told to jump.

“Don’t you wish…” She swallows, draws a breath. “Don’t you wish we could stay here all night? And sleep beneath the stars.”

“The nights are too cold, still. And you? You should have a tent and a cot and… I don’t know. Servants tending to your every need."

“I don’t want a tent or a cot. I want...” _I want your scent filling my lungs, your warmth spreading through my body, your heart beating beneath my hand, your pulse throbbing against my lips. I want you._ “...to lie like this.”

“You do?” he says in a raspy voice that makes her shiver. “Well, if that’s what you want.”

“Do I get everything I want today?”

“Within reason,” he says and she hears the smile in his voice.

“What if I want you to sing me to sleep?" 

Jon chuckles. “I doubt you’d enjoy that.”

“What if I want you to stroke my hair?”

He brushes his fingers down her hair, her back, again and again. “Like this?”

She closes her eyes with a content hum. “What if…”

_What if I want you to kiss me? What if I want you to marry me and give me children? What if I want you to love me?_

“What if what?”

“Jon,” she whispers, voice more frail than the tender sprouts peeking through the soil, “are things changing?”

She counts his breaths. One, two, three--

“If that’s what you want.”

She props herself up on her elbow to see him, and he meets her gaze steadily, face ever inscrutable. Where did he learn that, how to never give anything away? When he infiltrated the wildlings? Or because he grew up in a castle where the lady of the house hated him and it was the best way to make it through the day?

The simple answer, though--and the simple answers are often true--is that there’s nothing to give way. Perhaps her touch doesn’t burn him nor her smile warm him. Perhaps, to him, looking into her eyes never feels like drowning. His being a pragmatic king who’d rather marry the cousin he holds dear than court some lady he’s never met would explain his attentive but restrained behavior today.

“Because it would be practical,” she says. “If things changed.”

He turns his eyes to the stars. “It would.”

“We could both stay at Winterfell. Our ch--” The flutter of her heart, the blood rushing to her cheeks, strangle her voice. She clears her throat. “My children wouldn’t fight yours over Winterfell. Because they’d be _our_ children.”

Jon nods slowly.

“Arya won’t like it," she says.

Finally, Jon’s mask cracks with the faintest smile. He closes his eyes and shakes his head.

“Arya?” He exhales and catches that wayward strand of Sansa’s hair, twirls it around his fingers. “Who do you think helped me with all this? Why do you think she agreed to sit inside all day and listen to petitions when she hates it? She already knows. She’s known for a long time. Everyone has. Everyone but you.”

“Known what?” she whispers. 

He tugs gently at her hair. “Isn’t it obvious?” He unwinds her hair from his fingers and cups her cheek instead. “I thought you didn’t _want_ to know. So I’ve…” He sighs, brushing his thumb over the apple of her cheek. “But yesterday you said ‘we’.”

Sansa knits her eyebrows, shaking her head to tell him she doesn’t understand.

“‘Don’t you wish we could leave sometimes,’ you said. Not you. _We_. You and me. Even when you were so tired you wanted to flee Winterfell, flee all your duties and responsibilities, you still wanted me with you. Or did I get it wrong? Am I your brother still? Is that how you see me?”

“Is that what you want to be?”

Another sigh. “If you want to pretend this day never happened, we can. And if you want a life with me because it’s practical, then we can do that too. But it’s not like that for me, Sansa. It never was. I need you to know that. It’s time you knew that.”

And then he looks at her the way she’s wished for, longed for, and it’s so easy to dip her head and kiss him, to give in to the want that so frightened her once, and let herself be swept away by the torrent of emotions he evokes in her. It’s so easy to open up when his tongue touches the seam of her lips, and it’s easier still to roll over on her back and welcome his exploring hands and mouth, to reward him with sighs and moans and nips of her teeth. The dizzying feeling of wine is long gone. She’s drunk on nothing but him and how he fills her. She knows nothing but the waves of pleasure washing through her, shattering all her fears and leaving them behind as she drifts away into blissful oblivion.

She’d come to believe it could hold no beauty, this act, but now she learns she was wrong. She learns it beneath a starry sky, in a secret glade fragrant with flowers, to the motley song of cat owls and blackbirds and the sussorous wind and Jon’s breaths in her ear. And she learns the sweetness of curling up together afterwards, of being showered with kisses and caresses and murmured confessions. How it stirs desire anew and how he only needs a moment of her kisses and touches to take her again. How it only makes her want him more.

She learns what it means to be flooded with need, and how it doesn’t feel like drowning at all but like floating. 

When they finally make it back to the carriage and snuggle up, tired and spent and together, she thinks of her mother and father.

She thinks of their tired eyes full of love and the way they sometimes vanished when work piled up, and wonders whether they meant something else entirely when they spoke of spring floods.

She thinks, at least, that she and Jon will.


End file.
